Mobile communication devices such as battery powered cellular telephones can be equipped with multiple transceivers. In addition to communicating pursuant to traditional communication protocols such as CDMA and GSM, mobile communication devices may also communicate using non-cellular protocols. For example, mobile communication devices are often enabled with a Bluetooth transceiver and/or a local area network (LAN) transceiver. For communications pursuant to Wireless Fidelity (WIFI) or wireless local area network (WLAN) protocols, mobile communication devices can be equipped with a WIFI transceiver in addition to CDMA and GSM transceivers or other wireless transceiver.
Dual-mode communication devices can leverage the ubiquity of cellular networks (e.g., GSM and CDMA) with the high performance and low operational costs of local-area WIFI networks. The dual-mode roaming capability allows wireless handsets to utilize cellular or WIFI networks to place and receive calls and to provide Internet access for email and Web surfing while the device is in an active mode (in call).
The various aspects, features and advantages of the present disclosure will become more fully apparent to those having ordinary skill in the art upon careful consideration of the following Detailed Description thereof with the accompanying drawings described below. The drawings may have been simplified for clarity and are not necessarily drawn to scale.